Like Ross McCabe (“Column on health care full of repulsive ideas,” Nov. 16), I also was appalled by the William Vaughan Jr. column in which he suggested, among other things, that society should penalize people for bringing disabled children into the world.

Unlike Mr. McCabe, I appreciate the opportunity this paper gives readers to respond to these ideas, because we may be sure there are many people who share them. We are provided a platform to speak about reasons why they might want to rethink their opinions.

I am the parent of a child with a cognitive exceptionality. When he was diagnosed on his second birthday, I was filled with grief, partly because I knew there would be people who would not appreciate the gifts he would bring to the world.

Preparing myself to respond to those people, I read Pearl S. Buck’s “The Child that Never Grew,” a small book about her own child with cognitive exceptionalities. She, too, was concerned for how the world would look upon her child and others like her.

Her book details encounters with educators, who, through observing the mentally challenged, learned much about the neurological process of learning, and thus were able to develop teaching techniques applied to educating all children, to the betterment of society.

The same is true for those with other kinds of illness and disability; what we learn teaches us so much, to the benefit of all, including William Vaughan Jr.

Let us not take their gifts for granted.

Zoe Gaston

Cape Elizabeth

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